Scott Everts Interview

The latest developer interview on the Bethesda Blog is with Obsidian’s Scott Everts, a veteran with an impressive pedigree whose last project so far has been New Vegas’ DLC. Here’s an excerpt:

You’ve gone from being a Level Designer on Fallout 1 &2 to a World Builder for New Vegas. How are things different, and what’s stayed the same?

The tools are so much better! Building maps in Fallout was very time consuming. The art selection tools were really clunky. The art assets were just a sequential list with no organization so finding just the right piece could take awhile. Eventually you remembered that the corner building piece one was five pages into the asset list while corner piece two was eight pages. I can’t imagine having to build levels that way now. As for staying the same, the interaction between worldbuilding, art, and design has stayed pretty much the same. Though I usually don’t get map designs written on Denny’s napkins any longer. Yes, I got some for Fallout that way!

What would you say is your personal favorite game of all time? Also, any particular favorite levels?

I have very fond memories of System Shock. I played that game twice all the way through. I also loved Elite. Both of those sucked up a significant amount of my free time. Current games I’ve enjoyed are Civ 5, Torchlight, and Borderlands.